From the familial to the familiar. I met him over ten years ago and he talked to me about love and loss and all that gets pulled into such subjects like some sort of magnetic attraction. Actually more like a stain on a shirt that you just barely missed preventing, and because you are so pissed that it actually happened you make the hasty move to try and get rid of it without thinking it was about to get worse, and then it does. Many deal with such a loss by fucking someone else or fucking someone else over. He chose neither. His teeth were evidence of the path he has taken. Drinks and cigarettes and conversations caught on loop, the conversation wearing away at the truth. I have had dreams about that initial conversation on his bed so many years ago. The paint on the walls, the bed sheets, the thin fabric that covered the lone window of the make-shift room, and the tone of the conversation… they were all blue. I told myself to never succumb to such a predicament. My clothes has gotten dirty, and I’ve tripped a few times, all the time keeping a close watch for such a lady. But this time when I saw him however my adolescent perspective was not with me. This time I certain that it wasn’t just that one loss that he wore. His wife, his son, his brother, his friends, his family. Several of them will never come back, the rest disappear when the bottles are opened leaving him to fend for himself. Conversations on loop. Conversations on loop. Conversations on loop. He danced with a lady and he thought they were alone. She had asked for it though. Everyone else knew what was going to happen. And the microphone was close enough to catch his whispers. The songs ended, and I retreated to my car to check my phone. I skimmed to some histories and closed my eyes for a second so I could be somewhere else. When I opened my eyes the party was over and the blue that had been present for our first conversation had filled the evening sky. The sun had also called it quits.